Wired Magazine has an article called One Million Ways to Die. It lists some of the possible ways to die that greatly outnumber - odds-wise - the chance of being taken out by a terrorist. They base this on 11 years' worth of mortality data from the US, including the 9/11/01 attacks.

Note that during that period law efforcement agents have killed 3,949 people whereas terrorism accounts for "only" 3,147. Falling did in 146,542 people and that's not the top killer, which is driving off the road at over a quarter million.

As Wired says "In the five years since that shattering day, the government has spent billions on anti-terrorism projects, instituted a color-coded alert system that has never been green, banned fingernail clippers and water bottles from airplanes, launched a pre-emptive war on false pretenses, and advised citizens to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting."

Of course it would suck to get taken out by terrorists, and there's nothing wrong with honoring and remembering 9/11 for a whole lot of reasons. But it's not a mandate to secretly record telephone calls, send soldiers to die, grief photographers, or spend billions of dollars on do-little security systems at the cost of infrastructure such as levees.

Can anyone point me to even one *good* government reaction to 9/11?

Given the present condition of our nation, I would have to conclude that indeed the terrorists have won. Their actions have cost the country billions, restricted our freedoms, resulted in additional bureaucracy, generated hatred for the US, resulted in far more deaths than the immediate attacks, and gained themselves overwhelming press coverage.